


Four Perspectives on Patrick Jane

by skieswideopen



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-06
Updated: 2011-01-06
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skieswideopen/pseuds/skieswideopen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts from the team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Perspectives on Patrick Jane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/gifts).



> Originally written for fandom_stocking @ Dreamwidth.
> 
> Technically gen, but there's a little Cho/Jane (or at least Cho wanting Jane) in the background.

_1\. Teresa Lisbon_

Jane saved her life.

Lisbon tries to keep that in mind whenever she's tempted to draw her weapon and shoot him. Which on some days is fairly often.

He saved her life and he didn't have to. No one expected Patrick Jane to pick up a gun. No one would have blamed him if he hadn't. No one would have thought he should have.

He saved her life and in doing so, sacrificed his only link to Red John. In a moment that had left no time for calculation, even for him, his instinct had been to reach for life and not death.

It's how she knows that in the end, Jane will do the right thing.

She doesn't doubt that he means it when he says he plans to kill Red John. She has nightmares, sometimes, about walking in just as he finishes the job. About having to deal with the aftermath. But she has faith that in this matter, she knows Jane better than he knows himself. When the moment comes, she believes that he will be a better person than he gives himself credit for. That he will make the right choice. (The alternative is unthinkable.)

He saved her life.

_2\. Grace Van Pelt_

Grace prays for him every night. 

She prays for everyone on her team, for their safety and their success, but she always gives Jane an extra thought. She prays that he will be guided by compassion and do more good than harm. She prays that he will learn that all sins can be forgiven if you ask. And most of all, she prays that one day Jane will realize that there _is_ life everlasting, that he _will_ see his wife and daughter again, and that this knowledge will bring him peace.

Once she would have prayed for the words to guide him to that realization, but she knows now that she's outclassed. If Patrick Jane finds God, it won't be through anything Grace says. 

Ann-Marie, her best friend from home, used to urge her to keep trying, to see Jane's intractability as the kind of challenge that's a gift from God. To have faith that God would give her the words if she looked. Eventually Grace told her that proselytizing is a firing offence at the CBI, and that Grace believed that catching killers was just as much God's work as saving souls and she wasn't prepared to sacrifice one for the other. Ann-Marie had a few things to say about that, but not too many. The two of them had long since accepted that neither of them was going to persuade the other to change her mind about Hell and who goes there.

What Grace doesn't tell Ann-Marie--what she never admits to anyone--is that the thought of trying to bring Jane to God terrifies her just a little. Jane is so clever, so sure of his position and so good at twisting people around that, ridiculous though she knows it is, she's afraid that _he's_ not the one who would walk away from that conversation converted.

To do the work they do, to see blood and death and violence and the worst that human nature has to offer without any belief that the innocent would rise to Heaven and the perpetrators would be punished in death even if they weren't caught in life...she's not sure she could stand that.

_3\. Kimball Cho_

Cho resolves early on not to become emotionally invested in Patrick Jane. 

He hasn't known Jane long when he realizes that Jane doesn't have an exit strategy. Jane's whole life revolves around tracking down Red John, and once he's succeeded at that (and Cho never doubts that he'll succeed), Jane's going to be set adrift. He has no plans that extend beyond that moment. Cho's not sure he expects to survive it. 

He's not sure Jane wants to.

Becoming emotionally attached to Jane is just setting himself up for a particularly vicious sort of pain. He knows that, and he's determined not to play that game. It's a resolution that would be much easier to keep if Jane weren't so damn attractive.

He doesn't think Jane's figured that part out, because if he had, Cho suspects Jane would be aiming that brilliant, charming, manipulative smile in Cho's direction a little more often, rather focusing it so often on Lisbon. (Cho has no idea whether Jane's attracted to men. He doesn't think that will have any bearing on the likelihood of Jane flirting with men to get what he wants.)

On the days when he finds himself daydreaming about what it would like to be on the receiving end of that smile, Cho lists off all the complications that would ensue from a relationship with Jane. The conflict with CBI rules. The threat of bloody death from a possessive serial killer. The awkward coming out at work, throwing away years of cautious discretion. The looks and whispers and silences that would follow. The fact that Jane is still mourning his wife. The fact that he'll probably continue to mourn her until Red John is dealt with. Even friendship is a risky venture with Jane, one that will probably lead to heartbreak, albeit of a milder variety.

Better just to keep his distance. To hold his feelings in reserve. To accept that some things can't be changed and some people can't be saved.

Better, by far, not to long for a glimpse of that smile.

_4\. Wayne Rigsby_

One of the first things Rigsby notices about Patrick Jane is that he still wears his wedding ring. Rigsby knows Jane's story, of course--they all do--and the fidelity and love suggested by that gesture strikes Rigsby as unspeakably romantic. It speaks of the kind of love that moves mountains and inspires impossible feats and leads people to abandon everything they knew for that one chance at happiness. It speaks of the kind of love that Rigsby hoped to experience himself one day. The kind he later thought he'd found, until he learned that he hadn't.

Cho, more cynical, suggests that the ring is a great way to reinforce Jane's image as the grieving widower reformed by tragedy. Someone now suitable for the steady, staid environment of the CBI, whatever his past might suggest. Someone who could be relied upon to do a job, and do it properly.

Some months later, having witnessed Jane turn away woman after woman (and a few men as well), often with barely a second glance at any of them, Rigsby feels vindicated in his original assessment. (And just a little jealous.)

Sometimes Rigsby thinks about how it must feel to find that kind of love and then lose it. How it would feel to come home to find the bodies of the people you loved most waiting for you. How he'd feel if he ever found the mutilated body of a woman he had loved so deeply that seven years after her death, he still couldn't bear to remove his wedding band.

Of what it would it would do to him if he were to find Grace lifeless in his bed, toenails painted in blood. Of what he would do to the person who'd performed such an act, if he ever caught him.

Jane isn't Rigsby, of course, but Rigsby can't imagine any man experiencing that kind of loss and not wanting more than the cold comfort of a trial. He's sure Jane has a plan, and he really hopes it's a good one, because if Jane gets caught...

He prefers not to think about what will happen if Jane gets caught. He prefers not thinking about what he'll do if he's the one who catches Jane.

Truthfully, he doesn't know what he'll do if he's the one who catches Jane. What he'll do if it comes down to just the two of them, all alone, and Red John's body between them.

He's really hoping that Jane's plan doesn't require that he ever find out.


End file.
